In recent months, more attention has been paid to the fact that drivers with suspended licenses in New York State are still getting behind the wheel – and killing people. Transportation Alternatives led a rally in December to bring light to the fact that ten percent of all crashes in New York are caused by unlicensed drivers, and 75 percent of unlicensed drivers still get behind the wheel.

Suspended licenses are nothing to scoff at. Often, these drivers were suspended for reckless, dangerous, drunken driving. They are a menace to not only pedestrians like the man killed on a Midtown sidewalk in December, but also to other drivers on the road. Licenses are suspended for a reason: these people should not be behind the wheel of a vehicle.

But in Albany, not everyone sees it that way, apparently. On Tuesday, the New York State Senate Transportation Committee passed – by a 10-6 vote – S3627, a bill that would add additional immediate “hardship privileges” to people whose licenses are suspended because they are in “legal limbo.” Essentially, the current law establishes that a driver who is charged with drunk driving by the results of a blood, breath, urine, or saliva test shall have their license suspended on or before their first court appearance. This law covers the period between their first court appearance and their conviction. They may be in limbo, but their test results are proof positive that they were driving drunk. Shockingly, these drunk drivers are already allowed to request a court waiver to drive under certain conditions:

For the purposes of this clause, “extreme hardship” shall mean the inability to obtain alternative means of travel to or from the licensee’s employment, or to or from necessary medical treatment for the licensee or a member of the licensee’s household, or if the licensee is a matriculating student enrolled in an accredited school, college or university travel to or from such licensee’s school, college or university if such travel is necessary for the completion of the educational degree or certificate.

The new bill would add an additional provision:

OR NECESSARY OPERATION OF A VEHICLE DURING THE COURSE OF THE LICENSEE’S EMPLOYMENT

The bill was introduced by Assemblyman David Gantt, chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee, and known foe of the texting-while-driving ban and red light cameras. The bill passed entirely along party lines, with six Republicans voting against the bill, and ten Democrats – including seven from within the New York City limits – voting in favor.

New York State Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau cited the cases of People v. Correa and People v. Henderson as why the law should be amended to include employment-related driving:

In Correa, the defendant was a New York City firefighter who was required to maintain a valid driver’s license for his employment, even though he did not drive any emergency vehicles during the work day. In Henderson, the defendant’s employment duties required him to drive to and from various job sites on a daily basis. In both cases, the respective courts held that the statute did not authorize the court to grant a limited license for the defendant to drive while at work even though holding a valid license was necessary for their employment.

Interestingly, in the Correa case, he was ultimately found guilty, and the key reason his hardship request was denied was because he lived in New York City and could have used public transit to travel to and from his employer. This makes the votes of seven New York City legislators in favor of this bill even more baffling.

What the supporters of this seemingly small change to a state statute fail to recognize is that the loss of a job is a deterrant to drunk driving. Public service announcements regularly cite the potential loss of your license and your job as consequences of driving drunk. This new law would prove both of those untrue. These people broke the law, put other’s lives in danger, and should be forced to suffer the consequences.

What? You object to courts being required to follow due process of law before people are deprived of the ability to drive? Because “their test results are proof positive that they were driving drunk”? By that logic, why not skip the trial altogether, and just throw them in jail immediately! Why do we even bother with due process of law? Errors during investigation, with the chain of evidence, and the application of technology are never committed by law enforcement or other agents of the judicial system, right?

I’m glad that we have these constitutional protections in place, so that self-righteous people like you are not able to rush to judgment and ruin people’s livelihoods in those circumstances where the individuals are actually not guilty of the offense.

So, you’re suggesting that we should be willing to let all drunk drivers back behind the wheel of vehicles, endangering the lives of everyone, because of a rare instance in which a breathalyzer test may malfunction?

I realize that we don’t live in a society where we are guilty until proven innocent, but in both cases that the court cited, the defendant was later found guilty of drunk driving.

No, Chris, I am suggesting that we follow the required process of charging someone, trying them, and convicting them, before taking adverse action against them.

You place a lot of faith in breathalyzers. Do you know anything about them? Do you know that, even when functioning as designed, they report extremely variable results? Inferring blood alcohol content by assessing the alcohol content of expired air is, by its very nature, extremely unreliable, and is subject to variations caused by respiratory rate, heart rate, body composition, general health of the individual, and preexisting lung disease.

I’m not sure how allowing a “drunk driver” who has not yet been convicted of any crime back behind the wheel is endangering the lives of everyone, either. How many individuals who have been charged with drunk driving continue to drive drunk? Of those who do, who would do so even if you immediately suspended their licenses?

This is just another instance of exacting increased punishment against those who learn a lesson and change their behaviors in response to an arrest. The guy who gets drunk and drives over and over is going to keep driving even after being charged with drunk driving. The guy who has a couple glasses of wine at dinner and drives (a not uncommon scenario), who may or may not be significantly impaired, and then loses his license immediately, is going to lose his livelihood.

Only a small fraction of those who are driving drunk repeatedly are caught, and evidence has showed that they keep driving in spite of repeated arrests and convictions. Watering down all our constitutional rights by violating due process and jeopardizing the livelihood of countless others is too large a price to pay for the “rare instance” in which a repeat offender suddenly cares that he has no license and decides to stop driving drunk.

nanterking, you do understand that your driver’s license is not subject to the same due process as in a _criminal_ proceeding would be. You can have your license suspended for refusing to take a breathalyzer. It shows a lack of understanding of American law to pretend that you have equal rights to protect your license as you do to protect yourself from criminal charges. You have every right to fight the criminal charges, you don’t have every right to have a license while you do so.

Yes, I do understand that. That is why a law such as this one proposed is even necessary. If case law had interpreted the constitution to extend due process protections to travel by car, it wouldn’t be necessary.

The same due process protections are not in place to prevent asset seizure by the government.

Just because previous interpretation of the constitution has allowed such government abuses of our rights to take place doesn’t mean that those rulings haven’t been wrong and need to be changed.

So, any public service should use the burden of proof of “beyond a reasonable doubt” and the commensurate system used to establish that? To get kicked off of TANF, Medicaid, etc. you should have to have your income status proved to be over the limits? Or, in civil proceedings where the government is decreeing another private entity has legal right to take your property based on the mere “preponderance of evidence” as the burden of proof… that should also require the same level of proof as a criminal trial?

I think you fail to understand that due process is contextual–as it should be. The government/private entities using courts have different burdens of proof.

Drivers have every right to appeal decisions if they have had their drivers licenses revoked based on positive breathalyzer tests. Due process does not mean–nor has it ever meant–that all consequences are pushed off until after full trial. If the man is innocent then he will get his license back. If guilty he will face any criminal sanction associated with a DUI. Authorities will be forced to use methods that minimize the number (which are already few) of false positives. But you should remember, “[t]he guy who has a couple glasses of wine at dinner and drives (a not uncommon scenario), who may or may not be significantly impaired” is not a false positive if he is over the legal limit. He should lose his license. There is a reason we have BAC limits. Not because everyone with a 0.08 is always dangerous every time, but because enough are that when wielding multi-ton vehicles it is a public danger.

About the Author

Chris O'Leary is a transportation geek who has been reading and drawing maps since the age of 3. He thinks he knows far more than he does, but shares his somewhat informed opinions about mass transit, roads, and urban design here. He was born in Rhode Island and lives in New York City. He hates writing about himself in the third person.